Journal Entry #1 - My Thought Process

Hey everyone,

Wanted to reach out to you all about how I'm doing overall with art stuff and keeping up with my schedule. This is mainly an update on personal feelings and just some thoughts over the past few months. Not much should be changing dramatically but for those of you interested in it, I wanted to lay out the full context of my thought process. It's also good for me to just write all this down so I can organize my thoughts in a journal entry. I always feel like I need to cut things down for small social media posts or make everything bite-sized to drive up "engagement" but that's not always the most healthy way to communicate everything so sorry if this is a bit long and rambling. This may also get a bit sad at times but I'll keep to the necessary details.

It has been an interesting four months making the switch to full-time art. I have been working hard daily to find my stride in this new landscape. Given the state of the world and my own personal world, I have been used to just sprinting through everything out of fear of losing my chance at stability. Growing up, basic needs like food and shelter were not always guaranteed and my actions had a direct impact all of on that even at a very young age. Understandably so, I have developed very unhealthy work habits that keep leading to me feeling burned out but still pushing through it all because at times, there was no other option. However, thanks to your generous support, I have actual options for the first time in my 25 years on this planet.

For as long as I could remember, I was in love with art of every shape and form. The mediums that gripped me most were animation, film and games. I spent my days picking apart stories and trying to make sense of every little detail that the director put on the screen. Why was it there? What does it mean? Does it work in other contexts? I dreamed of working on big beautiful works of art that told a story with every second of runtime. Every detail would be there for a reason. I wanted to create big expansive universes with deep lore and worlds so detailed that you could zoom in on any character in it and they would have a story to tell. Needless to say, this all would require an astronomical amount of time and more money that I or even my family had ever seen. For years, this dream remained nothing but a dream. It stayed that way for so long, I never believed it could ever even start to become real. Right now we are at that start line. 

For the first time ever, I have the time and resources to take my time and really handcraft my art into what I want it to be. Thank you all so much for giving me this opportunity. These last few months have me been reconciling that this chance is 100% real. The dream can only become a reality if I am healthy and making steady progress towards it. This is a very long way of saying that I am going to make sure I pace myself properly and make sure I make you all proud with the things I make. Today is my first day back from a bit of a vacation to rest my overworked hands. Now I am ready to go at full power but also realize that I can't give my 100% effort 100% of the time. The only real changes that will happen is that comic pages will be on a "as they are completed" schedule rather than attempting to stick to a weekly commitment while also juggling countless other ideas and group projects. I can't officially announce and give updates on many of them simply because they are morphing and shifting so much, I could invalidate a ton of things about them next week. I also need to slow down a bit on my commission queue. I have a bad habit of sprinting through that as well. Anyone who has commissioned me knows that waiting more than a few days for a commission is very rare. While that is great service, there is no way I can keep up that standard with how many orders come in along with other projects. I'll keep all commissioners updated regularly but don't expect the usual 1-3 day turnaround. We'll be going more for a week or so for my own sanity and health. However, I do want to make sure I stick to a few core goals.

• Around 1-2 comic pages every month for long-form stories.
• Animation progress that is presentable every month.
• Our usual monthly "Flora and Sauna" update.

Oz will also be doing his usual comic work and will be helping me out more with my projects in vice versa. As we are nearing a potential end to the pandemic, I can feel the wind at our backs as we plan our next moves. I'm so excited for these next few years and I wish I could share more about my plans for them all but here's what goals I can share with you.

• Bigger variety of long-form NSFW and SFW comics.
• A series of animated shorts with the eventual goal of a multiple season long animated series.
• Higher quality "Flora and Sauna" updates with more in-depth stories.
• New SFW and NSFW video game projects with music and voice acting.

All of these goals are over the course of most likely several years but I swear to give it everything I've got to achieve them. I remember I made a post similar to this before. The main difference is the level of clarity I now have and how viable the path is to making every single thing on this list happen. Every day it only becomes clearer and clearer and it is all thanks to your support. There is literally no way that I would have even gotten this far without you and we're getting ready for so much more! If you have any other questions, I would be happy to go over them in the comments or in DMs. I imagine most won't bother to read the whole thing but to everyone who made it here, thank you for listening. 

Love-

Enro